Complete Dogs Guide

Dog Whisperer Tour 2010 - O2 Arena

2010-03-04T23:19:00.004Z

Last night I was one of the fortunate 20,000 or so people who saw Cesar Millan - a.k.a The Dog Whisperer live at the O2 Arena in London, the first venue as part of his 2010 tour of the UK.

Cesar's first show in the UK, started at 7.30pm. Cesar walked on stage and very quickly became emotional as he viewed the applauding crowd. He seemed overwhelmed and maybe a little nervous at first, but soon settled into his stride.

The show was pretty much as I had personally expected. He covered his well known rules:
Rules
Boundaries
Limitations

Exercise
Discipline
Affection

Nose
Eyes (open 15 days after puppy born)
Ears (open 21 days after puppy born)

It was great to hear from the man himself, in person on the stage. I thoroughly enjoy The Dog Whisperer TV show, but I'm also a great admirer of the man himself. The way he presents himself, interacts with other people, the way he shares his views, his energy, his expertise and what he has achieved in his life, his lack of ego, his views on life and animals, working Mother Natures etc etc etc (I could go on and on).

The first half of the show the stage was set out like a house, with kitchen table, sofa, and TV. there was also a door frame in the center of the stage.

Cesar also became emotionally after showing some photos on the big screen which featured his well known Pit Bull, Daddy, who he lets us know had passed away only recently. I looked through recent newsletter, which I hadn't been checking the email account of and found out that Daddy had passed away on February 20th 2010. One the photos showed Cesar's who family with Daddy, and Cesar stated that it was very shortly after that had been taken that Daddy passed away. For those that don't know Daddy was Cesar's side kick and was a great help helping Cesar to learn dog psychology and actually help Cesar in many of his cases.

At times during the show dogs were bought on the stage. They were generally happy go lucky dogs without any issues. There was one Labrador Retriever that was just a little excitable and Cesar demonstrated how the own should walk the dog, changing her posture and altering the position of the leash to the top of the neck, etc. This dog was also introduced to the treadmill.

Another dog was used to illustrate how to feed a dog, but the dog wasn't hungry.

Next was an excitable puppy, which was very interested in finding the food, and illustrated to the audience, just how the nose was so important and the puppy was constantly trying to jump up to the table on which the bowl of food was.

The show continued until about 8.50pm, at which time Cesar took a 20 minute break. While on his break a clip of Cesar in South park was shown, a very funny clip indeed.

He was back out at 9.10pm and continued on until 10.30pm, so a 3 hour show in total. For this half of the show the backdrop of the stage changed to a field and white fence and the stage featured white fence and gate and a treadmill.

When Cesar came back from his break, he did so through the audience, I was hoping he might walk down my way as I was seated in block B with an edge seat, but as soon as people spotted him, people were up wanting to shake his hand and many wanting to give him a hug, especially the women. So he kind of had to start making his way back to the stage.

The second half of the show featured a therapy dog or as they called it a Pat Dog, which illustrated a the goal of having a Calm Submissive dog.

We were also treated to Kate and Gin of 2008 Britain's Got Talent fame. Cesar had apparently seen them in the show on youtube and invited them. It was an amazing performance which went on for a few minutes. It was longer and better than she did on Britain's Got Talent.

The rest of Dog Whisperer tour continues around the UK, including Cardiff, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle, Glasgow, Belfast, Sheffield and Liverpool.

If your going to see him I hope you too have a great time.

Cesar Millan - The Dog Whisperer coming to the UK

2009-11-29T01:43:00.002Z

Cesar Millan, also known as The Dog Whisperer has been in the UK this week promoting an up coming tour of the Uk and Ireland.

He will be giving a seminar on dog pschology and logicn side and then in the second half of the seminar will be hands on and he will be showing his skills.

Listen to Cesar Millan on BBC Gloucestshire radio.

He also appeared on BBC breakfast TV last week, the interview is currently available on the above page.

152 New Rare Dog Breed Profiles

2009-06-05T20:30:00.001+01:00

Its been quite a little on the blog front, reason being I have been pulled away to work on other projects.

However, today I incorporated 152 new dog breed profile pages into the site. I have called them rare dog breeds because they are not UK breeds, so although some may be common in other countries they would very rarely been seen in the UK.

I still have a large number of breeds to add as well as interlink many of the pages, which will be easier to do once all dog breeds are completed.

Site Improvements

2009-06-04T17:35:00.003+01:00

Today I worked on improving the dog breeds section of the site as I felt a number of pages could be interlinked better, ie linking from one relevant page to another. However after working through a few pages I gave up as I would need to redo the job once more dog breed profiles are added.

I have many more of those dog breed profiles to add and that's something I'll be aiming to complete this month.

Dog Walking - Amber and Scooby

2009-03-24T17:14:00.002Z

Went to RATS, oneof my local dog rescues for the second time today and walked two different crossbreed dogs.

First up was Amber, a lovely white and tan dog. She was a real pleasure to walk. On the walk we saw another walker, a lady who was walking a black Labrador named Ben. I was a good couple of meters away on the far side of the path when he lurched forward and pulled his walker to the floor and dragged her along. She seemed more embarrassed than anything and wasn't really aware of my asking of whether she was ok.

Next up was Scooby, a tanned medium size dog. Very excitable, which I ignored. However, upon walking out the gates and into the first field he decide he wasn't going to move. I pulled him abit at same time as trying to encourage him but he wasn't having any of it. I tried to coax him with a little food but still no budging. I then just relaxed, looked around at the views and tried encouraging him again and along he came. He did try his sit ins a couple more times but was then fine.

More dog Walking

2009-03-02T17:03:00.003Z

Did some more dog walking today. A lovely sunny day here in England. Today I walked Ben, a Black Labrador, the very one I had seen on my previous walk that pulled his poor walker flat to the ground!!!

I took him for a good long walk, over an hour. He was well behaved although if given the chance would pull on the lead. Near the end of the walk we stopped near a stream, and in the stream near a pipe which was exiting from the bank I saw a small skull. I took a couple of pictures on my phone and when home searched "British mammal skulls" and from there worked out it could have been the skull of a fox.

After walking Ben, I took again offered to take another dog, and was given Amber, who again walked as good as gold.

In total I walked for near on 2 hours, and I can certainly feel it.

Volunteered For Walking Rescue Dogs

2009-02-19T16:40:00.003Z

Since the passing of my Airedale Terrier Sky, I have missed walking a dog, so Ive been on the look out for possible options.

One of them I found was at R.A.T.S, the Re-homing Animal Telephone Service, which is a fairly local charity.

I had been in email contact this week with them and found out that basically anyone

can go down between the hours of 10am - 4pm and walk a dog. That suits me just fine.

It took me longer than expected to find it at about 50 mins in the car. Although getting home via a different route it was less than 30 mins, so not too long really. Of course in ideal world Id like something a bit nearer.

The first dog I walked was a Lurcher male named Marley. He is approximately 2 years old and supposedly good with other dogs and children. I had asked for an easy dog to walk as it was my first time as a volunteer. I wouldn't say he was easy, within seconds of him coming out he had his paws near my face. He also pulled a bit, especially when saw a dog in the distance. He also didnt know any obedience. On the walk he paid me virtually no attention to me. Wasnt untill the end of the walk when I sat down and gave him some affection that I really got any eye contact.

. I walked him for an hour.

Then seeing as it had taken me so long to find the place I thought I may as well make the most of the time and asked to walk a another dog.

In email contact this week the lady Lisa had mentioned a dog called Kizzy who had been there a while and when I first enquired about her, straight after saying I wanted an easy dog the kennel hand Carol said she was far from easy. Anyway, Kizzy was then the 2nd dog she bought out for me to walk, a Rottweiler cross.

Shes 8 years old and has been in the kennels for 2 years. The Kennel lady had told me she doesnt like her head touched. When I bought her back and asked a couple of questions she told me that Kizzy had been known to bite in the past but that her behaviour had improved with training.

For me she walked fairly well. Didnt pull hard, but was often trying to edge in front.

She was obedient and would sit when asked at gates and also knew down, stay and come, all while on the lead.

I walked her for 1 hour 40 mins. The walks are in nice countryside area around some fields. I got good bout of much need exercise and more importantly so did the 2 dogs.

Site Progress

2009-02-17T19:43:00.003Z

Ive been a little quite on the bloging front recently, but have been working when I can to improve the site.

I have paused the addition of new dog photos while finalising some changes to other areas of the site.

I've been busy working on new content using the services of researches and webmasters to add the content.

Coming soon will be information on 148 dog breeds, full profiles of each one.

Currently I have workers preparing information on a number of much rarer breeds and they will also be added in due course.

Once all these dog breeds are covered I can then start working on the rest of the site.

Site traffic is doing well and climbing every month. Last week the site attracted over 900 unique vistors for the first time in a single day!

Visited Local Local Animal Shelter

2009-02-15T18:48:00.003Z

Today myself and my family (wife and 3 daughters) visited Hula Animal Rescue (Hula = Home for Unwanted and Lost Animals) which was having an Open Day to raise money.

It was my wifes idea to go, mainly to get my daughter out the house and nice for her to see some animals, which is something she loved to do.

They had a range of animals, a few ponies, couple pigs, chickens, rabbits a cattery and a dog kennel with about 15 - 20 dogs. There were various breeds, a couple of Mastiffs, a http://www.completedogsguide.com/dog-breeds/Labrador-Retriever/, a Labradoodle and a couple of Rottweiler's plus a range of crossbreeds.

All in all it was a good couple of hours out and some well raised money for the animals future care.

My Airedale Terrier Sky has died

2009-01-16T18:55:00.004Z

Its been a hectic couple of weeks so far this year and unfortunately has ended in my Airedale Terrier, Sky being put to sleep on January 10th 2009. She was 7 years old.

My 5 month old twin girls were booked in overnight at a hospital a few miles away to each have a hernia operation on January 5th. Sky stayed over at my parents, who also had my sister and niece staying over. She had been fine up to this point.

Upon coming home, she was unusually quieter than normal, especially given she hadnt seen us for a day. Later that evening she left most of her dinner and was later sick in the garden.

The next day, she was off her food and again being sick, even though not eating. I was worried about her that evening as she really didnt look well.

Thursday I took her to the vets and must admit I was getting very worried about her as it didnt seem like normal sickness. However when I got to the surgery the Vet said theres been a bout of dog sickness going around, so I bought her home and was told I needed to give her a syringe of fluid made up from a powder forumla they gave me, which she was to have every 15 mins to 1 hour.

Friday, I was still syringe feeding her, and popped out for a while for a meeting and when I came back she wanted to go outside, but as she did she just collasped in the garden.

I rushed her to the vets and she looked really bad. Not responding at all. It turns out later that evening she had a heart failure.

The next morning the nurse told me she was doing okay and lifting her head. Later I rang to speak diret to the vet who told me she was suffering from acute pancreatitus which had lead to kidney failure and a heart attack.

He told me both the acute pancreatitus and kidney failure were really bad and that she may not fully recover from the kidney failure. When questioned he said it would be best if she was put to sleep.

Her last heathly day and night were spent with my family who loved her and spoilt her with plenty of attention and walks.

A few days have passed and Ive have had mixed thoughts in grief but as each day passes decisions and issues become more clearer and I know I made the right ones.

Some people say naughty dogs are here to teach us, well she certainly taught me heaps.

She was a lively dog, alot of fun and very loving and leaves us with alot of good memories.

Pedigree Drops Sponsorship of Crufts!

2008-10-26T11:38:00.003Z

Here in the UK, Pedigree, the most well known brand of dog food has dropped its sponsorship of the world's greatest dog show Crufts.

Ever since I can remember the 2 have been together, 44 years in fact and Pedigree often referred to Crufts breed winners in its TV advertisements.

Its been reported the decision has come in light of a TV documentary aired earlier this year about the Kennel Club, in which it was claimed they were not doing enough to stop the the development of generic problems in certain breeds.

Earlier this month the Kennel Club annouced its intentions to review the breed standards for all dog breeds.

The health and welfare of the dogs should always have been of upmost importance to the Kennel Club.

Awstats Added to Monitor Traffic

2008-10-21T18:54:00.003+01:00

Today I have had AWSTATS added to the sites server to monitor the traffic that the site is now receiving.
Its free, but its not something I had time to work out myself so I had to pay a contact to add.

All key information is shown on one long page. It shows where traffic is coming from and all the search terms the site is picking up traffic for, although its doesn't specifically show which search terms are coming from which search engines.

All data is stored so from now Ill I'll always be able to refer back to previous months to review the traffic stats.

Traffic is increasing every month so its reached a point where its important to start monitoring.

Help on its way

2008-09-12T00:46:00.002+01:00

The site has been growing well, but its time again for some help. Starting this week, or maybe next week now I will have someone (Paul) helping full time to add dog breed pictures to the site and hopefully if people like the site they will also give us a link.

I also want to build up the number of breeders and rescue sites we actually link out to, but I think its best to find out which sites are still running as some are indeed dead, as in they have not been updated for years. Although even some of them have good content and maybe deserve a link.

It is very time consuming adding photos. They first need to be resized, then added, then linked to. Then we add senders details and thanks, as well as pic details if we have them.

Some people are kind enough to send them in there 10's.

Traffic for August 2008

2008-09-01T14:54:00.000+01:00

Progress on site last month was admittedly a little slow. Although I hope to increase the pace of growth significantly sometime in September 2008 and beyond.

Traffic has increased every month since January this year. However August was just a slight increase of 495 visitors on July's total. At 9825 visitors in the month it was also very close to breaking the 10,000 mark.

What Im hoping to do is break the 10,000 mark in style and never looking back. That will be a great level for the site to reach as it matures to 1 year of age.

2 New Arrivals - Busy Time

2008-08-30T13:52:00.002+01:00

Its been a busy few weeks, and although the site has been updated Ive had zero spare time to blog.

Reason, 2 new arrivals to my family, identical twin girls, born at the end of July and 2 months premature. So they had a couple of weeks in hospital, but were out earlier than expected and last couple of weeks we've been settling in a routine at home.

They are happy and healthy and putting on weight after both being under 4lbs.

At the moment, Sky my Airedale Terrier is cornered off in to the conservatory and garden using an old play pen which can be arranged in a straight line. Didn't take her long to work out how to push up the handle with her nose and open the doorway part, a problem we had a few years ago when I had my first little one. The handle is actually quite stiff so she had to push hard to open that with her nose.

She also used to open stair gates with her nose, so this time around we have had to buy two news ones, that she won't be able to open when she is given back free run of the downstairs part of the house.

No to forum. photos and videos

2008-04-06T23:29:00.002+01:00

Well, i had a reply to my request for help adding site forum, photo albums and videos section, and it was not helpful. Basically it was outside there area of expertise.

I need to start building links soon as well as requesting more dog breed photos, so it would have been nice if I could have worked some magic and had some community aspects quickly in place so that fellow webmasters of dog sites could participate in this site, sooner rather than later.

Anyway, Ill have it all in good time.

Forum, pictures and videos

2008-04-05T12:01:00.001+01:00

Found a web site on the net today that offered a number of services by way of hiring out webmasters.

I thought Id try them out and see if they could help me out on any or all of a number of requests to improve the web site.

Firstly I want a dog photos section, separate from my current dog pictures section.
A way for site visitors to easily upload pics of there dogs with a little info to share with everyone.

Then I wanted a new videos section which would incorporate dog videos, and people could embed there favourite youtube and other video sites videos within my site.

Thirdly, Id thought Id see if it all could be combined with some kind of membership to a site forum.

My goal is to eventually make the site a community for dog lovers. Although it is still relatively early days and I'm not to worried about introducing it all too soon. Although it would be nice to have it all in place for when the site starts getting alot more traffic.

March Web Site Traffic Increase

2008-04-02T16:55:00.002+01:00

March was another growing month for traffic to the web site, with unique visitors increasing 50% on February's total.

The site still appears not to have aged enough for the Google search engine so doesn't yet have any particularly good rankings for primary keyword terms.

Mainly during the month of March a number of dog pictures pages were added or updated. I've hired help for that time consuming task and hopefully the addition of new pictures and pages will keep growing at an ever increasing rate. So far its been a bit of slow process.

April is set to be the best month yet!

New Siberian Huskies Pictures

2008-03-17T09:15:00.002Z

Started the week off well with new photos added to my Siberian Husky breed profile page and also a new Siberian Huskies Pictures page has been created.

All extra photos, including the one below, were kindly sent in by Melissa Arab of Taja Siberian Huskies who has this website Taja Siberians.

All going well I'm hoping to really have a good week this week with plenty of new pages and many more dog breed pictures being added. I've still got a backlog dating back to end of November but now with some assistance I'm planning as a bare minimum to completely clear the backlog.

Giant Schnauzer wins Best in Show Crufts 2008

2008-03-09T23:48:00.003Z

Its was the last day of Crufts 2008 today and the Crufts Best in Show award was won by a Giant Schnauzer named Philip.

Philip had previously been the winner of the Working Dog group.

Crufts 2008 starts today

2008-03-06T17:10:00.005Z

The biggest calendar event of the year - Crufts, starts today.

It's the biggest dog show in the world. According to the web sites front page they had over 150,000 visitors last year.

I have so much on at the moment that I hadn't even thought of attending, although this time next year I intend to make a visit to Crufts 2009. Of course this time next year I'll have one of the biggest and most popular dog sites on the net!

Popularity of Designer Dog Breeds

2008-03-05T14:18:00.001Z

I was doing a little research today regarding what dog related search terms people search for on the Internet.

I was quite surprised to find the many hybrid breeds, in particular the poodle hybrid breeds are actually searched for, albeit most not in large quantities.

One surprise in particular was the Maltipoo (Malti-Poo) was surprising popular. Maybe its a breed owned by a well known celebrity, or bought to prominence by some other means.

Anyway, Ill certainly have to have a look into adding some information on some of the more popular hybrids at some point in the future.

Earmarked 381 New Dog Breeds

2008-03-04T17:35:00.003Z

I have today earmarked another 381 dog breeds to be written about and added to the site in the near future.

I'm trying to workout the best order to add them to the web site. I could just start by doing in alphabetical order and working through each and every one or I could do in the order of popularity. One way I'd do that is by researching how many people search for each breed name.

I'm pretty sure there's still a number of breeds I can add to the list. What makes it confusing is that depending on where people live in the world they sometimes refer to teh same breed by a number of different names.

It's also going to be quite expensive getting all these breeds researched and written about.

February Best month so far

2008-03-01T12:25:00.000Z

With lots of new pages added throughout the month of February, combined with many pages from January being picked up by the search engines its no surprise that site traffic on a monthly basis was at a new high for the month.

Hits at the end of the month were averaging about 100 a day.

At some point during this month I intend to actively start the Internet marketing of the site. Currently I still have a number of outstanding jobs adding content and planning for more content to be added during this new month of March.

As far as Google is concerned, the site doesn't appear to have aged, and isn't ranking for any decent search terms. It only seems to pick up hits for one off long tail terms.

The site did start picking up more traffic from search engines Yahoo and MSN during the month.

Corgi, Cesky Terrier and a Retriever

2008-01-26T19:13:00.002Z

Another 3 new breeds added, again, at time of writing no pictures of them on the web site.

Cardigan Welsh Corgi which is not the Corgi breed well known to be loved by Queen Elizabeth II.

Cesky Terrier, a terrier which originated from Czechoslovakia and bred for hunting small vermin such as rats.

Chesapeake Bay Retriever which gets it names from where it originated, the Chesapeake Bay which is the largest estuary in America.